


(I Don't Own Emotion) I Rent

by finesharp



Category: Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-25
Updated: 2010-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-14 02:29:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/144355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finesharp/pseuds/finesharp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was late into Friday night – so late it might as well have looped around into Saturday morning – and the photographer was dozing in his car as it idled outside the GeneCo building.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(I Don't Own Emotion) I Rent

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amberswansong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amberswansong/gifts).



It was late into Friday night – so late it might as well have looped around into Saturday morning – and the photographer was dozing in his car as it idled outside the GeneCo building. Since she'd announced she was taking over the company, most of the media had seen neither hide nor hair of Amber Sweet outside of official functions. She never went to her favorite clubs, she never passed out in her favorite alleys, and the paparazzi were beside themselves. What kind of trouble was Amber Sweet getting into now that the last person in the world who could control her was gone? And why didn't anyone have pictures?

Dawn was just poking her disheveled head out from under the covers of the Pacific ocean when Amber's private car pulled up to the great glass doors of the GeneCo building. He readied his camera, hoping for a good shot of her stumbling drunkenly out of the car or even, if he was lucky, being carried. Instead, when the driver stepped around and opened the car door, someone exited the building itself. It took him a minute to be sure under her new wig and large, dark sunglasses, but he was sure it was Amber when the guards stepped out behind her; she was still wearing the same face, and what other woman would merit such treatment from GeneCo? He snapped a few photos out of habit, though these weren't likely to be worth much.

He knew she was supposed to be flying to Brazil today, but it seemed early for her to be heading to the airport. As the car pulled away, he let his own vehicle shift into drive and he followed. The car should have headed straight for the bridge to the mainland if she was going to the airport. It didn't, however, turning down a smaller side-street and detouring through one of the small residential neighborhoods and past a graveyard. The car parked at the end of an alley at the beginning of the warehouse district.

"Jackpot," he murmured. A few more shots of Amber getting out of the car, then he switched to the telephoto setting as she walked down the alley. Someone stepped out of the shadows. A dealer, he guessed. He couldn't get a clear shot, not even with the best telephoto setting, but he took a few more anyway. Shadowy figures were always good. He waited to get the money shot - Amber handing over some cash, maybe. Though he wondered why the head of GeneCo would bother buying street Zydrate, he didn't stop following the action through his viewfinder.

They were arguing now, that was obvious. She left without giving or taking anything, a disappointment, but the pictures of her in the alley would net him something, at least. Sure, she hadn't done anything, but the tabloids would write their own headlines no matter what was in his pictures.

As she returned to her car, the photographer lowered his camera and flipped the switch so he could review the shots he'd gotten.

Something banged against his window. He looked up, surprised, to find one of Amber's guards standing next to the glass, the butt of her rifle about to rap against the window again. He tried to reach for the starter, but the gun was then pointed at his head almost before he saw the woman move. Hell, was that how GeneCo was keeping the tabloids quiet? Murder?

The other guard opened the passenger side door and leaned in.

"Christ! You can't just come in my car! This is freedom of the press!" he snapped, but the other woman still had her rifle cocked outside his window and he didn't trust the glass to be quite that bulletproof. Without a word, the second guard slid back out of his car.

"What the fuck..." he grumbled, reaching for the door handle, but a hand held it open.

Amber Sweet slid into his passenger seat.

"Is it just the money? Or is it personal?"

He stared at her.

"It's got to be one or the other, for you to be out this early. If it's money, tell me what you want for those pictures."

"Why? All I got was you arguing with some guy in an alley. You can't even see him, and you didn't do anything."

"I don't want- it's complicated." Amber sighed. "Part of our... relationship working is that I only see him on my terms. If he's in the tabloids, and I have to see him everywhere, that doesn't work."

"Relationship?"

Amber shook her head. "Uh-uh. I'm trying to be nice. But if you think my girls out there haven't already run your plates and pulled up a rundown of everyone you know and how much their bodies are in hock to GeneCo, you're dreaming. I've worked my ass off to run this company since my father's little swansong, and I still get nothing but shit from the media. I am not going to sit here and smile while you ruin the second-best thing in my life."

He almost asked about 'second-best' but thought better of it.

"So do you want a check? Or is this going to be a game of me ruining your life before you ruin mine?"

"Ch-check-" he stuttered.

She pulled the electronic form up so that it hovered over her phone and swiped her fingerprints across it, then punched in a number and quite a few zeroes. "That good enough?"

He nodded, and she signed off on the transaction. A moment later, his watch chimed a notification. He didn't have to look at it to know.

"Must be nice to be able to buy peace of mind," he said as she got out of the car. He didn't look at her, just at his own bank's notification of the deposit.

"Buying? Ha. Another one of you will be after me tomorrow. At best, I think I'm renting." She winked at him as one of the guards opened the door, apparently without even a signal. "Use that to pay off your kid's kidneys, okay?" Amber walked away without looking back, but he felt the eyes of both of her bodyguards until the car had pulled away.


End file.
